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Why Privatizing Medicare Is Highly Explosive

In response to my recent post where I averred that the cigarette companies were treated as scapegoats, I have had several cyber and actual conversations about personal responsibility. I believe that folks should realize the consequences and the benefits of freely-made decisions.

While we want American society to be compassionate, we do not want to punish success and reward failure. Our goal is to do all that we can to maximize everyone’s success. We should be ready to assist those who need and deserve our private and governmental assistance, but personal effort and responsibility are necessary elements of these interventions.

In our gastrroenterology practice, when we see patients who are in financial difficulty, my physician partners and staff will do all that we can to help them. While it is not our policy to do colonoscopies for free, we will make whatever adjustments that are necessary to make sure that the patient receives necessary medical care. However, when patients who owe us money hang up on our calls, or express their view of medical entitlement with foul language, then we forward these accounts to a collection agency.

There is also a self-interest angle to supporting assistance for those in need: One day we may need a boost ourselves. Recall the concept of privatizing social security, a sound proposal that was vilified and snuffed out during George W. Bush’s presidency. Antagonism against this modest proposal was seasoned with a large measure of arrogance, a splash of hubris and a dash of paternalism. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at MD Whistleblower*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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